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Kurmanji (Kurmancî) or Northern Kurdish (sometimes misspelled as Kirmanji, Kurmangi or Kermanji) is the most commonly spoken dialect of the Kurdish language.

Scripts and books[link]

The Kurmanji language, which uses the Latin script, is the most common dialect of Kurdish language and spoken by 80 % of all Kurds.

Kurmanji is the ceremonial language^{[citation needed]} of national^{[dubious – discuss]} Kurdish religion “Yezidism”. The sacred book Mishefa Reş (“Black Book”) and all the prayers are written and said in Kurmanji.

Speakers[link]

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Most important native communities in Kurdistan

• Kurmanji is the only Kurdish dialect that is spoken in all four areas which are vastly populated by Kurds.
• The vast majority of Kurds in Eastern and Southeastern Turkey speak Kurmanji.
• It’s also the mother tongue of the all Kurds in Kurdistan of Syria.
• Iran and Iraq also have a significant amount of Kurmanji speakers:
• Kurmanji in Southern Kurdistan (Northern Iraq)is spoken in the cities of Mosul, Duhok, Zakho, Akre, Amedia, Sheikhan, Shangal, Zummar.
• In Iraq, Kurmanji is mistakenly called by some as Bahdini, simply because Kurmanji speaking Kurds live in Bahdinan region, which consists of the above mentioned cities and towns.
• In Iran, Kurmanji is spoken in the northern parts of the country, in the cities of Urmia, Maku, Khoy, Salmas as well as exile by Kurds in Khorasan province of Iran.
• In Iran, it is sometimes called "Shikaki", due to major Kurmanji tribe Shikak which is the tribe of legendary Kurdish leader Ismail Aghaye Shikak, also known as legendary Simko among the Kurds.

Also

• Kurmanji was also the official language of the autonomous Red Kurdistan (Russian Красный Курдистан) that established in Lachin, Kalbajar and Qubadli and surrounding cities in Azerbaijan, and existed between 1923 to 1929.
• Kurmanji is also spoken by the entire Kurdish population that was exiled from the historical Kurdish homeland. Some one million Kurds living in Khorasan Province of Iran in the cities like Quchan, Shirvan, Esfarayen, Bozhnurd (Bojnurd), Dargaz, Chenaran, Faruj, Bajgiran, Ashkhane and Kalat speak Kurmanji.
• Kurdish exile community in Ankara, Konya, Kirsehir, Aksaray, Eskisehir and some other cities of Middle Anatolia of Turkey also speak Kurmanji.
• Entire Kurdish population in Former Soviet countries such as Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Russia and Ukraine, as well as the all Kurds in Lebanon are the speakers of Kurmanji language.
• Kurmanji is also spoken by 200,000 Kurdophones settled around Kabul, in Afghanistan and some in Pakistan.

Etymology[link]

The main theory about the etymology of Kurmanji is that the term Kurmanji, according to Prince Jaladet Bedirkhan, the great Kurdish intellectual who prepared the Latin Kurdish alphabet, comes from Kurd+man+cî which means, those Kurds who remained in their places (not moved like others). In earlier publications of this century, the term Kurmanji was sometimes spelled with a "d" like "Kurdmanji" but the standard spelling of the term is Kurmanji in English and Kurmancî in Kurdish.

One other theory is that the term Kurmanji is believed by some scholars to mean Median Kurd.^[1] Some scholars say the older form of this word is Khormenj (also possibly Hormenj, which means “place of Khormens” or “land of Khormens” in Kurdish). Kurds historically lived in the area Greek sources defined as Armenia; thus Greek Armen could be a rendering of local Khormen. Note that modern Armenians' name for themselves has historically been Haiq.

See also[link]

• Kurmancî, a Kurdish linguistic magazine
• Northern Kurmanji
• Central Kurdish
• Southern Kurdish
• Pehlewani
• Kurdish language
• Kurukshetra
• Mair Rajputs

References[link]

• Ethnologue

External links[link]

• Kurdish Institute Kurdish language, history, books and latest news articles.

Jalal Talabani
6th President of Iraq
Incumbent
Assumed office 7 April 2005
Prime Minister	Ibrahim al-Jaafari Nouri al-Maliki
Vice President	Adil Abdul Mahdi Tariq al-Hashimi
Preceded by	Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer (Acting)
President of the Governing Council of Iraq
In office 1 November 2003 – 30 November 2003
Preceded by	Ayad Allawi
Succeeded by	Abdul Aziz al-Hakim
Personal details
Born	(1933-11-12) 12 November 1933 (age 78) Kelkan, Iraq[1]
Political party	Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
Spouse(s)	Hero Ibrahim Ahmed[2]
Children	Qubad
Alma mater	University of Baghdad
Religion	Sunni Islam

Jalal Talabani (Sorani: جەلال تاڵەبانی Celal Tallebanî, Arabic: جلال طالباني‎ Jalāl Ṭālabānī; born November 12, 1933) is the sixth and current President of Iraq, a leading Kurdish politician. He is the first non-Arab president of Iraq, although Abdul Kareem Qasim was of partial Kurdish heritage.^[3]

Talabani is the founder and secretary general of one of the main Kurdish political parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). He was a prominent member of the Interim Iraq Governing Council, which was established following the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime by the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Talabani has been an advocate for Kurdish rights and democracy in Iraq for more than 50 years.

Early life[link]

Talabani was born in 1933 in Talaban Village and descends from the Talabani tribe that has produced many leading social figures^{[citation needed]}. He received his elementary and intermediate school education in Koya (Koysanjak) and his high school education in Erbil and Kirkuk. In the late 1950s Mustafa Barzani sent him to Syria to study law. He is fluent in Kurdish and Arabic and has working knowledge in Persian with Kurdish accent and English. His youngest son, Qubad, is the representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government in the United States. Talabani is a member of the Socialist International^[4].

Career[link]

Rights for Kurds[link]

When in September 1961, the Kurdish revolution for the rights of the Kurds in Western Iraq was declared against the Baghdad government of Abdul Karim Qassem, Talabani took charge of the Kirkuk and Silemani battle fronts and organized and led separatist movements in Mawat, Rezan and the Karadagh regions. In March 1962, he led a coordinated offensive that brought about the liberation of the district of Sharbazher from Iraqi government forces. When not engaged in fighting in the early and mid 1960s, Talabani undertook numerous diplomatic missions, representing the Kurdish leadership at meetings in Europe and the Middle East.

Jalal Talabani with President Barack Obama during a visit to Camp Victory, Iraq, April 7, 2009.

The Kurdish separatist movement collapsed in March 1975 after Iran ended their support in exchange for a border agreement with Iraq. This agreement was the 1975 Algiers Agreement, where Iraq gave up claims to the Shatt al-Arab(Arvand Rūd) waterway and Khuzestan, which later became the basis for the Iran-Iraq war. Believing it was time to give a new direction to the Kurdish separatists and to the Kurdish society, Talabani, with a group of Kurdish intellectuals and activists, founded the Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (Yekiaiti Nishtimani Kurdistan). In 1976, he began organizing an armed campaign for Kurdish independence inside Iraq. During the 1980s, Talabani sided with Iran and led a Kurdish struggle from bases inside Iraq until the crackdown against Kurdish separatists from 1987 to 1988.

In 1991, he helped inspire a renewed effort for Kurdish independence. He negotiated a ceasefire with the Iraqi Ba'athist government that saved the lives of many Kurds and worked closely with the United States, UK, France and other countries to set up the safe haven in Iraqi Kurdistan. In 1992 the Kurdistan Regional Government was founded. Talabani has pursued a negotiated settlement to the internecine problems plaguing the Kurdish movement, as well as the larger issue of Kurdish rights in the current regional context. He works closely with other Kurdish politicians as well as the rest of the Iraqi opposition factions. In close coordination with Massoud Barzani, Talabani and the Kurds played a key role as a partner of the US-Coalition in the invasion of Iraq. Talabani was a member of the Iraqi Governing Council that negotiated the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), Iraq's interim constitution. The TAL governed all politics in Iraq and the process of writing and adopting the final constitution.

Presidency[link]

Talabani and Vice President Joe Biden

Talabani was elected President of Iraq on April 6, 2005 by the Iraqi National Assembly and sworn in to office the following day. On April 22, 2006, Talabani began his second term as President of Iraq, becoming the first President elected under the country's new Constitution. Currently, his office is part of the Presidency Council of Iraq. Nawshirwan Mustafa was Talabani's deputy until Mustafa resigned in 2006 and formed a media company called Wusha. Talabani visited the Cambridge Union Society UK, on 11 May 2007.^[5] The visit itself was organized by the then President of Cambridge Union Society, Ali Al-Ansari. In an interview, during the visit, Jalal Talabani described Tony Blair as a 'hero' for helping secure Iraq's freedom.^[6] He was reelected by the Parliament for a new term on 11 November 2010.^[7]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jalal Talabani

Wikinews has related news: Iraq's President supports U.S. Senate plan to decentralize Iraq

• Kurdistan Regional Government

v t e Heads of state of post-Ottoman Iraq Kingdom of Iraq (1921–1958) Kings of Iraq Faisal I · Ghazi · Faisal II Republic of Iraq (since 1958) Presidents of Iraq Muhammad Najib ar-Ruba'i† · Abdul Salam Arif† · Abd ar-Rahman al-Bazzaz*†  · Abdul Rahman Arif† · Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr† · Saddam Hussein† · occupation  · Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer  · Jalal Talabani * acting     † deceased

v t e Prime Ministers of Iraq (List) British Mandate of Mesopotamia (1920–1932) 40px al Gillani · as-Sa'dun† · al-Askari† · al-Hashimi† · Tawfiq al-Suwaidi · Naji al-Suwaidi · as-Said† Kingdom of Iraq (1932–1958) 40px Shawkat · al-Gaylani · al-Midfai† · al-Aiyubi† · al-Hashimi† · Sulayman · as-Said† · H. Pachachi · Tawfiq al-Suwaidi · Arshad al-Umari · Jabr · as-Sadr · Muzahim al-Pachachi · Mustafa al-Umari · Mahmud† · al-Jamali · Arshad al-Umari · Mirjan · Baban Republic of Iraq (1958–2003) Qasim† · al-Bakr† · Yahya† · ar-Razzaq† · al-Bazzaz† · Talib · Arif† · Yahya† · an-Naif† · al-Bakr · Hussein · Hammadi · Zubeidi · as-Samarrai · Hussein Iraqi Governing Council (2003–2004) al-Ulloum* · al-Jaafari · Chalabi · Allawi · Talabani · al-Hakim · A. Pachachi · Hamid · al-Ulloum · Barzani · Salim · al-Yawer Republic of Iraq (since 2004) Allawi* · al-Jaafari · al-Maliki * interim     † military